Welcome to the Top Shot Mailbag for July!
This month, we partnered with the NBA and NBPA to create first-of-their-kind fan experiences at NBA Con and the Brotherhood Deli at Summer League, hosted a Fireside Chat with Adam Silver about the future of NBA Top Shot, and started to deliver on some of our big plans for the summer — including the introduction of Steph Curry’s Anthology, the distribution of unreleased Series 1 Moments, our first drops of the WNBA season, new product enhancements focused on collectibility, and the delivery of Player Leaderboard and Team Leaderboard Rewards.
To submit a question for our August mailbag, send it to mailbag@nbatopshot.com!
When can we expect the Pack Marketplace to be live?
Top Shot's Pack Marketplace remains actively in development and remains one of our top priorities.
Which Sets remain for Series 4 and when will Series 4 close? When will VGN conclude?
There are new historical Sets coming in Series 4, and those will be the only final unreleased Sets of the Series.
As far as Video Game Numbers, it concluded this July, and the 20th and final Moment, a Challenge Reward featuring Jayson Tatum, has been released. The Set will officially close this off-season, along with other recently completed Rare Sets like Throwdowns and For The Win, which have also already seen their final Moments added for Series 4.
The best way to review, view, and shop for any Series 4 Set is by visiting nbatopshot.com/sets and our new Set Pages introduced this July!
One of NBA Top Shot’s goals for Series 4 was to achieve Net Neutral Circulating Supply, in which Moments released into the overall supply were equal to Moments removed from the overall supply. With the NBA season now over, how has that gone?
Series 4 is still active and will continue through the offseason, but we’re happy to provide an update on our aspirational goal as it stands today — between NBA Top Shot and our collectors, over 11,000,000 Moments have been burned!
Excluding the 8,456,291 Moments burned by Top Shot, ranging from the most limited edition Ultimate Tier Platinum Ice Moments to the most accessible Common Moments, and including unreleased Moments and Locker Room Moments, this is a comprehensive state of supply and Net Neutral Circulating Supply between August 11, 2022, and Noon ET on July 31, 2023, including both NBA and WNBA.
- Released Moments: 4,885,326
- Moments Burned by Collectors: 2,812,926 (2,122,605 burned from Leaderboards and Trade Tickets + 690,231 burned from Challenges)
- Moments Locked (and still locked) by Collectors: 2,603,377
- Moments Traded-In by Collectors: 1,602,972 (Moments traded-in to the Locker Room but not burned)
- Net Supply Total: 4,885,236 Moments released by Top Shot minus 7,019,185 out of circulation by collectors is a Net Negative of -2,133,859 Moments.
This net negative of 2.133 million Moments does not include the 8.456 million Moments burned by Top Shot in Series 4.
As Series 4 enters the home stretch, we’ll continue to introduce opportunities for collectors to burn Moments in exchange for new Packs and Rewards.
Will Top Shot ever have team rewards that only apply to collectors with that team as their favorite?
Looking ahead to Series 5, we are exploring different ways to incorporate a collector’s Favorite Team into new concepts and potential Rewards or Leaderboards. The details around this are early, but we know our Fan Communities, Team Captains, and the wider community of collectors are interested in measuring their fandom and collection against other collectors who share the same favorite team.
When will minting Moments for Base Set S4 be complete?
The final 24 Base Set Moments (and Parallels) of Series 4 are:
Aaron Gordon, Anfernee Simons, Anthony Edwards, Bam Adebayo, Dalen Terry (Rookie), DeMar DeRozan, Devin Booker, Devin Vassell, Franz Wagner, Jae’Sean Tate, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson, Kyrie Irving, Lauri Markkanen, Luka Doncic, Luke Kennard, Maxi Kleber, Mikal Bridges, Pascal Siakam, Peyton Watson (Rookie), Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Simone Fontecchio (Rookie), Tyrese Maxey, and Wendell Carter Jr.
These Moments were first introduced in July and will continue to be distributed.
The Base Set is a comprehensive collection of impactful players and Moments from the NBA season. We included the rookies mentioned above because otherwise these rookies never would’ve received rookie Moments minted in their rookie seasons. The Base Set Moments and Parallel editions for these players will be available in Packs prior to the start of Series 5. We also introduced Moments from players we identified as strong starters across all 30 teams. It was important for consistency’s sake for all 30 teams to have representation with at least 5 players per team included.
The complete S4 Base Set will be 239 Moments, making it smaller than the Series 3 Base Set (347 Moments), Series 2 Base Set (533 Moments), and Series 1 Base Set (287).
Top Shot Score has been used as a metric for Leaderboard placement in a number of different ways recently. Has any thought been given to resetting Top Shot Score at the beginning of each Series to more accurately measure a collection, and the Moments inside of it, for the particular series when the Top Shot Score is used?
There are no current plans to change Top Shot Score. With that being said, we expect to continue to evolve Burn Leaderboards to help make the game design more interesting on Top Shot. A recent example with an evolution to Burn Leaderboards came to fruition with recent Series 1 Vault Leaderboards, which had separate entries and prizing for Series 4, Series 3, Series 2, and Series 1 Moments.
The one-year anniversary of locking has passed, and with it, the ability for collectors to unlock their Moments, and Top Shot did not share any new incentives to keep Moments locked. How has the introduction of unlocking gone compared to expectations?
Overall we are pleased that collectors have been able to choose to unlock or remain locked with relative ease. We’ve seen little to no influx in support inquiries or confusion around the process, and have noticed many collectors acknowledge the benefit of having the flexibility to remain locked and choose to unlock in the future at their will.
We are still in the process of reflecting on the good and bad of Series 4 rewards and incentives and do not intend on rushing anything out that is not fully considered and reflective of the lessons we’ve learned over the last 12+ months — and that applies to Set Rewards, Leaderboard Rewards, and other game design mechanics we’ve learned from. We do plan to continue to have rewards for locking great Moments in the future.
Can you share any updates on the undistributed Series 1 supply?
This process is already underway in a multi-step approach.
- Series 1 Vault Leaderboards and Series 1 Reserve Packs — containing 4 Series 1 Moments from our previous efforts to distribute this supply via Trade Ticket Packs for 350 Tickets — were delivered to collectors across 8 different Burn Leaderboards that covered Moments from Series 1-4. All of these Leaderboards have concluded, and all of the Rewards were delivered to collectors.
- 40 Trade Ticket Locker Packs — every remaining unreleased Series 1 Moment exists in our Locker Room, with a small amount in our inventory outside of our Locker Room. Moments in the Locker Room can only be removed via Trade Tickets, so we are currently in the process of a comprehensive inventory and Drop Content Guide that details every Common, Rare, and Legendary Series 1 Moment that is unreleased. These Moments will be used to create approximately 21,000 Packs, each with 3 Moments inside, that will be available on August 8 for 40 Trade Tickets each.
All of the undistributed Series 1 supply will be 100% distributed upon the conclusion of the Trade Ticket Locker Pack Drop. We look forward to getting these Moments into the hands of our collectors and will share complete details about the 40 Trade Ticket Locker Packs with a minimum of 48 hours advance notice of the drop.
There will not be a maximum number of Packs any one collector can purchase using Trade Tickets, but there will be a maximum number of Packs you can purchase in a single order based on your Top Shot Score. In practice, we fully expect collectors to try to rejoin the Queue to get more Packs.
Can you share your Summer Pack Drop plans for NBA? Previous communications have hinted at NBA history and historical Moments across multiple tiers.
We’re very excited about these Drops and to be honest, the details are too good to spoil the surprise in a Mailbag.
Exciting things are soon approaching.
Any update on the KD Anthology Set? As a Warriors team Set collector, should I expect more KD Warriors Moments? Any updates on that Set would be great!
Kevin Durant, LeBron James, and Steph Curry are the only active players with an open Anthology and will be the only active players to have any Anthology Moments in 2023.
Collectors can expect new Rare and Legendary Moments for Kevin Durant on the Golden State Warriors and Oklahoma City Thunder by the time his Anthology is closed, but as of today, we only anticipate the release of 1 additional KD Anthology Moment in the final months of Series 4.
Can collectors expect to see more Burning and/or Locking Leaderboards in Series 5?
Yes. The ability for collectors to burn or lock Moments and compete on Leaderboards to win Moments and Rewards will be a part of Series 5.
It’s been a year since Magic Johnson gave us the first autographed Moment on Top Shot. We haven’t seen any autographed Moment since. When can we expect the next Autographed Moment?
Sooner than you may expect!
How does Top Shot plan to reward the most loyal collectors? It seems most rewards go to the largest accounts.
With the introduction of Team Leaderboards, Player Leaderboards, Set Rewards, and Fan Communities, among other smaller-scale initiatives, Series 4 was the most comprehensive, inclusive, and defined Rewards Program of any year in Top Shot.
We’ve received plenty of great feedback on how the Rewards can be improved, along with their discoverability and participation, and look forward to streamlining and iterating on how we reward collectors across the board in Series 5.
That being said, we are very proud of all the new things we accomplished and provided members of our community in Series 4, which saw more Rewards — and more unique Rewards — given to collectors than every previous Series combined.
In Series 4:
- The Top 1500 collectors on any/all 30 NBA Team Leaderboards received new Common CLAMPS Moments.
- The Top 750 collectors on any/all 30 NBA Team Leaderboards received new Rare Dynamic Duos Moments — the Top Shot Debut for every NBA team.
- The Top 250 collectors on any/all 30 NBA Team Leaderboards received new Rare Fit Check Moments.
- The Top 50 collectors on any/all 30 NBA Team Leaderboards will receive new Legendary Year In Review Moments this offseason.
- The Top 250 collectors on the Player Leaderboards of Giannis Antetokounmpo, Luka Doncic, Joel Embiid, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Jimmy Butler, Steph Curry, Nikola Jokic, Donovan Mitchell, De’Aaron Fox, LeBron James, Damian Lillard, Julius Randle, Domantas Sabonis, Jrue Holiday, Jaren Jackson Jr., Brook Lopez, Evan Mobley, and Alex Caruso received new Rare “2022-23 Honors” Moments to recognize each player’s spot on an All-NBA or All-Defensive Team. These Moments are being delivered today, July 31.
- The Top 150 collectors on the Player Leaderboards of Walker Kessler, Jaylen Williams, Keegan Murray, Bennedict Mathurin, and Paolo Banchero received new Rare “2022-23 Honors” Moments to recognize each player’s spot on an All-Rookie First Team. These Moments are being delivered today, July 31.
- The Top 50 collectors on Paolo Banchero, Jaren Jackson Jr., and Joel Embiid’s Player Leaderboards received new Legendary “2022-23 Hardware” Moments to recognize the Rookie of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year, and Most Valuable Player. These Moments are being delivered today, July 31.
- The Top 25 collectors on the Player Leaderboards of LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and Steph Curry received airdrops of their first Legendary Anthology Moments — with additional Moments of these players delivered via weighted drawings across team and player Leaderboards.
- Anyone who locked a completed Common or Fandom Set received, or will receive, at least 2 free Packs airdropped to them, for each individual Locked Set, and there were two different opportunities to take advantage of that benefit.
- Anyone who locked a completed non-MGLE Rare Sets, a Base Set, an MSFE Set, or Cool Cats received, or will receive, at least 2 free Packs and 1 Rare Pack airdropped to them, for each individual Locked Set, and there were two different opportunities to take advantage of that benefit.
- Anyone who locked a completed Rare MGLE Set received, or will receive, 3 Rare MGLE Packs airdropped to them, for each individual Locked Set, and there were two different opportunities to take advantage of that benefit.
- Anyone who locked a completed Legendary NBA Set received, or will receive, 1 Legendary Pack, 3 Rare MGLE Packs, and guaranteed reservations for Legendary Packs of their choosing, for each individual Locked Set, and there were two different opportunities to take advantage of that benefit.
- Anyone who owned any complete Team Checklist for any NBA team was eligible to access our Fan Communities, led by Team Captains, which rewarded collectors of those teams with a total of 2,500 regular season NBA tickets, not including additional Playoffs tickets, along with other benefits and rewards that were entirely funded by Top Shot — the first season this ever existed — with more tickets provided to collectors than every previous season combined.
- Collectors who ranked highly on the leaderboards of certain players and teams ended up hanging out with Magic Johnson in a private mansion in Los Angeles, cooking with Cade Cunningham at a vegan restaurant in Detroit, and sipping wine postgame with Klay Thompson in The Bay.
- All collectors were eligible and welcome to attend free events and NBA games at our inaugural “The Tour” stops in Toronto, Portland, Miami, and Paris, where over 500 collectors joined us across these destinations to connect with each other and meet retired NBA athletes.
The amount of time passed in a Top Shot Series can feel longer than the actual time passed on a calendar, but we wanted to reflect on the entirety of the Rewards we’ve delivered or promised in Series 4 to date to paint a picture of everything we were able to accomplish.
Thank you for reading the July 2023 Mailbag. If there are any other questions you want to see answered, send them to mailbag@nbatopshot.com for consideration this August.
Editor's Note: On Wednesday, August 30 at 4:05 PM ET, this blog was updated to correct the number of free Packs distributed for Set Locking Rewards.
